My Greek Routine

Welcome to my Greek lair!  Sometimes people will ask me what I've been up to lately, or how I spend my time (since I don't work outside the home), and I usually just give them a general answer like, "oh you know, this and that, nothing real exciting".  I normally don't tell them that my morning hours are usually spent bent over my Greek studies because either I feel weird telling them, or I just don't want the praising attention.  So only a few select people know about this, but today I wanted to write about my routine because I am so excited about finally making it to the 10th book!  (more about that later)

First, I do my flashcards.

I have a shelf lined with index card boxes, labeled with the days of the week (Mon-Fri).  I don't know how well you can see it, but the days of the week are written in Greek, only for my own amusement.  They are actually the words in modern Greek because the Koine Greek doesn't have any words for the days of the week that I know of.  But what I thought was interesting was that the modern day words actually emphasize the point that Sunday is the first day of the week.  For instance, the modern day Greek word for Monday literally means "2nd day".  The modern day Greek work for Tuesday literally means "3rd day", and so on.  The word for Sunday means "the Lord's day" and the word for Saturday closely resembles the word for "sabbath". I just thought that was very interesting.  Anyhoo, today is Wednesday (the "fourth day") so I pulled out the box for Wednesday and this was my flashcard stack for today.

As you can see, I have them labeled "one week", "two weeks", "four weeks", "eight weeks", "16 weeks", and "32 weeks".  I will explain my system to you:  If I get the answer(s) right, the card goes from one week to two weeks, or from two weeks to four weeks, and so on.  They keep moving up to "32 weeks", and if I can still get the answer(s) right after 32 weeks of not studying it, then I figured I have it mastered, and I can take it out of circulation (toss it in the trash).  If I get the answer wrong, the card goes back into the daily pile and it has to start all over again ("educational punishment").  I know it sounds terribly redundant, but this is the best way that I know how to really learn Greek and MASTER it.  Most preachers, when they are going to preacher school, are required to take a Greek class, and that's a really good thing!, however, I often question how much they really learn because I know that they are on a time schedule, so can only cover so much, so I think they cover the basics, take the tests, and then go on their way.  Most of them forget what they learned after they leave school (unless they keep studying it on their own).  Well, I don't want to learn it just to forget it.  I want to learn it and keep using it because it is a very very very useful tool to have for studying the Bible.  So the system that I came up with is to learn it, and then keep reviewing it, and keep spreading out the reviews longer and longer in order to prove to myself that I really did learn it.  (I was going to add a "year" file, but decided that 32 weeks is long enough to prove that I mastered it).  The flashcards can be very time consuming.  Usually they take an hour or more, but there are some days when I don't have ALL of them to do, like I might not have anything in "eight weeks" or "32 weeks".

After I get those done, I go to my file folders.

These are also labeled with the weekdays.  This is where I keep the quizzes and tests that come from the work books, and they are under the same system as the flashcards.  As you can see, the next quiz in my Wednesday folder is scheduled for April 15.

And that means that I get to move forward into the next lesson in my workbook.  

I was so excited because today I finally got to start Book 10, which is what prompted me to write this post.  I started these books in the Fall of 2009, and it took me THIS long to finally start the last book.  The reason it took so long is because I use the same system for these as I do for the flashcards.  I could very easily just do the exercises in the book and move on, but I know if I did this, I would not actually LEARN the material.  The best way to drill it into my head so I won't forget it, is to keep doing them over and over again until they are MASTERED.  The only thing I do different with these book exercises as opposed to the flashcards is that I consider 90% or higher as "passing".  If I score below 90% on any of these exercises, guess what?, it goes back into the "daily".  I can't tell you how many times I've had a quiz make it all the way to 32 weeks, only to get sent back to the daily.  Argh. I get kinda mad at myself when that happens, but hey, if ain't mastered, it ain't mastered and I ain't doing myself any favors by cheating.  Sometimes I am what you'd call a "mean teacher",  but I am my own student and my own teacher so I am allowed to be as mean (or as lenient) as I want to be.  But I am not on any school schedule and have no deadlines, so I am free to take as long as I need to get it mastered, so yeah, it can get frustrating at times when I have to send papers back to the dailies, but really it's no big whoop. The time involved for this part of my routine varies.  Sometimes I have LOTS of quizzes to do, and some days just one.  Today I had none and there were no "dailies" to do, so I got to learn something new and add the new quiz into the circulation.  BTW, this is a good curriculum, however, it is FULL of mistakes!!   The answer key is full of corrections that I had to make.  It is confusing enough to learn a new language, but to have wrong answers in the answer key is doubly confusing.   A lot of them were obvious mistakes that I just knew were wrong, but there were others that I had to consult my "Greek mentor" friend at church to make sure it wasn't me who was getting the answer wrong.  Most of the time he confirmed that the answer book was wrong.  Whoever put this curriculum together did a terrible job proofreading it.  But, I will say that the mistakes kept me on my toes, and the fact that I was able to spot them makes me feel good that I was mastering Greek enough to notice it.

After that phase is over, I get to move on to the best part where I apply what I learn and really test my skills.  The Greek New Testament.  This is my ultimate goal.

I am translating one verse at a time from Greek to English.  You could even say that I am actually writing my own Bible translation, of course learning as I go.  And I am getting better at this as I continue to learn and master the Koine Greek.  So far I have translated the gospel according to John, all three of John's letters, and now I am translating the gospel according to Matthew.  I copy the Greek text in a notebook word for word, and translate each word in it's literal sense, and then put it in the best English that I can without losing the Greek meaning.  I can see now why it's a good idea to know how to look things up in the Greek cuz some of the phrases and words just cannot be translated into English with the exact same meaning as the Greek, unless you want your English translation to be really weird and not make any sense.  The time it takes to translate a verse also varies.  Some verses are very short and some verses I can translate with no problem without even looking any of the words up in the lexicon.  But there are others that have words in them that I'm not familiar with, or I'm confused about the syntax and/or grammar, so I have to take the time to look stuff up.  And then, there are times when the verse is very interesting and I just want to study the verse itself for it's theological content, or the verse will open my eyes to something new so I might excitedly look up other references to study it more.  I can really get myself off track when this happens.

So by the time I get that done, depending on the load of flashcards and quizzes, how much time has already gone by - usually at least 2-1/2 hours by now.  If I don't feel "burned out" by this time, or if I don't have other pressing things to do, I will move on to my supplemental material and do more.

...like make another flashcard from the lexicon.

Most people wouldn't think about using the introductory pages in a lexicon - they just use the lexicon to look up words (which is totally fine).  But I have found that these pages contain a lot of extra information that is useful for my studies.  A lot of it is stuff I've already learned, but it does have charts in there that are worth memorizing.  Yes, I know that this is a very nerdy thing to do, but I find that it helps to reinforce those things that are hard to memorize and the lexicon often times has explanations in there about how to form conjugations and inflections, etc., that aren't explained in any of my other books.

Here are the other supplemental materials that I use:

I actually started the "Hey Andrew!..." books with my kids when I was homeschooling them.  The kids eventually lost interest, but ..........not me.  I am in the "Level 8" book now, and I gotta say that these books are EXCELLENT for supplemental exercises.  I really wish that they would make more of these books (Level 8 is as high as they go).  The book on the top is another one that I've actually been doing for years.  I'm about halfway through it now.  It's taking forever to get through it because, again, I want to MASTER the material, not just do the exercises and call it "good".  The book in the middle is a relatively new one and I am slowly working through it.  I know it's a lot of extra material, but I have found that it's really helpful to learn Greek from several resources because if I don't "get it" with one curriculum, I'll probably "get it" if it's explained a different way in another curriculum.  

It'll take me awhile to get all ten of those workbooks done, but after I get those done, and the last "Hey Andrew" book done, that'll leave a little time window open to move on to these:

Yes, I am already excited about moving "beyond the basics" and have already started purchasing new workbooks to take me even further.  Every once in a while I'll pull out one of these books if I'm really struggling with something in particular, but mostly they are just waiting for me to make them part of my regular routine.  I'm guessing maybe another year or so.

So now you know how I spend my weekday mornings.  I take a break from it on Saturdays and Sundays.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the Bible verses.  Several months ago I started adding memorization verses to my flashcards, which makes the flashcard phase even longer, especially if several verses end up being on the same day (I put them through the same 1-2-4-8-16-32 week system integrated into my regular Greek flashcards).

At night when I do my casual Bible reading, I will often run across a verse that really sticks out and I think "that is a really cool verse, I should memorize that one".  So I write it down and put it in my box that I keep in my nightstand.  One by one they are getting added to my Greek routine.  I just added a new one today:

Amos 4:13 - For behold, He Who forms mountains and creates the winds And declares to man what are His thoughts, He Who makes dawn into darkness And treads on the high places of the earth, The LORD GOD of hosts is His name.

In the first picture of this post, you can see how well I did with it so far.......  still working on just the first phrase of it.  

Pie for Breakfast!

I still have a bunch of rhubarb in my freezer from last year's harvest, and when I saw some strawberries at the commissary the other day, I decided it was time to make a strawberry-rhubarb pie. Usually I buy strawberries with a lot skepticism and hesitation because the mold likes to hide inside the strawberries where you can't see them.  Before I put them in my shopping cart, I roll the plastic box around and around and around, looking for any sign of white fuzz, but sometimes don't see it until after I get it home because it's lurking in the MIDDLE of the strawberries.  Anyhoo, I lucked out this time.  Some of the strawberries had some wet mushy spots, which I cut off, but over all, this box wasn't that bad.  I'm just glad I used them before they became worthy of only the trash.

One reason that I like to make pies is because they are the perfect breakfast food.  Well, maybe not, but I love to eat pie for breakfast.  It's really nothing but a fruit pastry if you think about it, but so much better than the fruit pastries that you buy in a store, because the ones you buy in a store are less healthier for you - not that homemade pies are "healthy",  but at least you can control what goes into them.

It's true that rhubarb takes a good amount of that "evil" sugar to make it more palatable, but at least it's not HFCS, like what you would get from a processed pie.  I read on several websites that the ideal sugar consumption for the average female should be no more than 25 grams, or 6 tsp per day.  Or was that Tbsp?  I don't remember now.  Anyhoo, this pie has one cup of sugar in the whole thing (not counting the natural sugar in the strawberries).  I like to cut my pies into 12 pieces instead of the traditional 8, so 1 cup (16 Tbsp) divided by 12 is 1.333333333333333333333333333infinity Tbsp, which really isn't TOO bad.  Of course the other evil in this pie is the refined white flour used for the crust.  Maybe someday I'll find a healthier alternative for that, but for now, I just want my crust to taste good and have a good texture, even though I fully realize that consuming evil flour is probably a crime against my body.  (at my age I tend to increasingly and more frequently worry about getting cancer - have you noticed the growing number of cancer cases?).  Back in the 80s/90s I saw a commercial about AIDS that said that everyone knows someone who has AIDS.  Well, to this day, I still have never personally met anyone who has AIDS (that I know of), but I know LOTS of people who have cancer; it seems so inevitable these days that I often wonder when it's gonna be my turn.  But apparently I''m not worried enough to stay away from sugar and refined flour - yet.

Anyhoo (I strayed off the subject again, didn't I?), pie for breakfast wouldn't be complete if not accompanied by a good cup of joe.  For awhile I quit drinking coffee because of tummy issues, but lately picked it up again.  I find that decaf coffee doesn't bother me, but I stay away from the loaded stuff (caffeine doesn't seem to agree with me anymore).  But since I still want to take it easy on the coffee, I generally don't have more than one cup a day, and even then I only end up drinking half of it because it gets cold before I can drink it all, and cold coffee is just...............nasty.  So whatever I don't drink, I save for a pumpkin latte later in the day.

I have read in magazines that there is a new trend out there where people are actually pudding a pad of butter in their coffee.  Not only because it tastes good, but also because butter is turning into a new "health fad" - now that the general consensus is turning around that butter is actually good for you instead of evil as we were so brainwashed to believe, (that I was smart enough to not fall for).  I was raised on margarine, but after I left home, I started buying butter and never looked back, and that was 30 years ago.  Where does the time go?

I do NOT put butter in my coffee because somehow that doesn't appeal to me.  Instead, I put a little dab of coconut oil in my coffee.

Coconut oil is good for you in a lot of ways, and it adds a nice smooth subtle flavor to the coffee.  Yes, it adds calories, but at least they are healthy calories.  And then I add this stuff because I hate HATE hate black coffee:

Dairy is another food genre that I have to watch, especially milk, heavy cream, and sour cream (not that I would put sour cream in my coffee....)  

It's nice that I can once again enjoy coffee, as long as I don't put the wrong stuff in it.

And coffee always tastes better with a slice of pie.  Not IN the coffee, of course, but on the side....

Don't put your pie IN your coffee.

Different subject:  I finally got that anniversary card done.  This is the finalized cover:

And this is how I ended up putting the pages together:

I used a paint pen to edge the pages with gold.  I wanted to put "water marks" on the pages as well, but my VersaMark pad has pink ink in it, which made the images look pink, so I left the pages Plain Jane.  I scored the left edges of the pages so they will open up easily, and then used brads to hold them all together.  I already gave it to the church secretary so I won't be tempted to change anything else.  I just wanted to be done with it and get it out of my hands before I do something to ruin it.  BTW, if this card looks familiar at all, it's because I copied it from another card that I saw on Pinterest.  I cannot take full credit for this card.

and that's enough of my rambling for one day.  

Just Checking In

I haven't written for a few days, so thought I would just post a couple things that have been going on on the sidelines of everything else.  First of all, we've had the privilege of taking care of this little guy as needed (so far we've had him twice):

Isn't he a cutie?  His name is Dominic.  He is the nephew-foster baby of a lady from church who acquired him with only an hour and a half notice (she didn't even know her sister was pregnant until after he was born).  I shouldn't say too much on here, but he is actually a "meth baby", which is why he was taken away to be with his aunt.  So he's got some little quirks, but he is such a very good baby.  He never complains unless he's gassy, and is always ready to give you a big huge toothless grin.  We will have him again next weekend for three days.  It's so nice to have a baby in the house again, even though we're not used to it.  The hardest part is dealing with the tiredness from not getting a full night's rest.  But that's okay - we really enjoy taking care of him.

Another parallel plot that's going on is that my daughter, Kayla, aka PeeWee, decided to join the Army Reserves.  I have mixed feelings about it, but mostly excited because I know it will be really good for her in so many ways, and it's a good opportunity to jump-start a career.  The only thing I wish she would change is that I'd rather see her go Active Duty for SO many reasons that would be too long to list here.  I'm hoping that she will still consider it.  But in the meantime, she has some work to do before they will accept her.  The minimum weight for a female is 121 pounds and she only weighed 113 (with her clothes on).  So before she went to MEPS we got her this stuff:

It actually helped her gain two pounds in one week.  But she still looks like this:

Except, she got her haircut the other day really short, so now she looks like this:

I don't mean to pick on her, but she always did look like a stick child.  Anyhoo, as far as her medical exam goes, she passed it except for her lazy eye which she has always had.  She's supposed to go back next week and have the military optometrist decide whether or not her eyes are fit for the military.  But I think she'll be ok cuz her lazy eye isn't really that bad.  She never wears glasses, and she passed her driver's license test without any help, so at worst, the military would just make her wear glasses.  If so, then all she has to do is gain weight.  

Oh, I wish I had that problem!

Just for the record, for those who don't know, "lazy eye" does not mean "crossed eyes",  as her recruiter automatically thought.  When PW was little, we had the luck to find an eye doctor who told us that most eye doctors are too lazy too explain to their patients the difference between "lazy eye" and strabismus.  Strabismus is when the eyes cross or don't align properly.  "Lazy eye" is when one of the eyes gets "lazy" and doesn't want to work as hard as the other one, resulting in blurry vision in one eye.  So whenever you hear of someone getting surgery for "lazy eye", remember there is no such thing as surgery for "lazy eye", so they are most likely getting surgery for strabismus.  When Justin was little, he had both strabismus AND a "lazy eye".  He had surgery to fix the strabismus, but still wears glasses for the "lazy eye".  In the year 2000, I myself had eye surgery for strabismus.  PW never had strabismus, but has a "lazy eye".  No surgery will fix that.

Understand, rubberband?

Other than that, I got all my Easter boxes done.  I got them all done early for a change, so it's nice that I won't have to panic about those. 

AND I already ordered my seeds for my vegetable garden this year.   Chuck is more serious about buying a greenhouse, so I'm going to again try cucumbers, and then I will try for the first time tomatoes and sweet corn (only a few stalks).  So now I just have to wait for the right time to start some seeds indoors.  And when I do that, it'll be another post of course.

I also got that anniversary card almost done.  I'm just trying to decide how I want to bind all the pages together.  At this stage, when I'm almost done with it, I'm afraid I'm going to do something to ruin all my work, so I hesitate to do anything, and it just sits there and sits there and sits there, while I stare at it and stare at it and stare at it, when really I could have it all completed in less than an hour if I just did it.  I think this weekend I'll just take the plunge and brad all the pages together, and hopefully it'll still look nice.

And THEN, I can get to work on that binding for Steph's quilt,  which has been put on the back burner for too long now. Hopefully I will be able to start on that this weekend.  But we'll see.